Page 95 of Crown of Wrath

The drakeling doesn’t seem to care that Echo may have hurt herself. Her snout moves to Echo’s face, taking deep sniffs, and she whirls back toward me.The Queen of Darkness? But she is Other. She is not like you. She is like the misty place. How is this possible?

“She was born in the misty place,” I explain. “But she is like me. My mother taught her.”

The other drakelings seem agitated at that explanation. Zephyra stares at me for a few moments before moving back to the other drakelings.You will not go back to this place. You will not make us starve again. You will not kill us.

I blink. I never expected four drakelings to demand that I stay away from Valinar. “I have to go back. I’m supposed to get married. My…mateis there.”

Zephyra’s eyes close some, and extra smoke pours from her snout.You left your mate in the misty place? You will get him, and you will stay away from there. Do you understand?

She doesn’t seem to be ready to hear anything other than my agreement. “I have to stay there for another eight days so that I can bond with my mate. Then I’ll leave. None of you will starve.”

Zephyra looks at me and then at the other drakelings. They’re silent for a few moments, but I know they’re talking as their eyes flick from one to the other. It’s not Zephyra who talks to me afterward. The black one walks toward me, and for the first time,I realize what a dragon would look like if it were to stalk its prey. Its eyes shimmer with the same rainbow of colors as Zephyra while it looks down on me. Zephyra had been very animated about her frustration, but this one doesn’t let on how its feeling.

Then its head snakes down until its eye is right in front of me, just as Calyr had done.You will stay gone for eight days only. Then you will come back. If you do not, we will drag you and your mate out by your throats.Where Zephyra is soft even when she’s frustrated, this drakeling is booming, just like Calyr or The Darkness. He—there is no doubt in my mind that the drakeling is a he—seems to want to compete with them for the award for the loudest creature in the world.We will wait here for you.Do you understand, Queen of Stone?

I nod quickly at him and say, “Yes. I understand.” I don’t think he would kill me since he needs me to be the Conduit, but after the way he looked at me, I’m not entirely sure.And stay away from the one you spoke to in the void. It is far too dangerous for you to be talking to. You will not endanger my mate by speaking to things that are better off left alone.

Zephyra nods, and when the black one leaps into the air, its midnight black wings carrying it into the sky. She follows with the other two flying behind her. Echo and I watch them as they soar above us.

“This has not been the day I expected,” I mutter to myself.

I guess Echo heard me because she chuckles. “Maeve, you are a much more interesting person than I expected. You talked to a drakeling as if it were a friend.”

I shrug. “She was one of the reasons that I didn’t give up when I found out how everyone had manipulated me. I kept fighting because of the drakelings, and she told me her story when I was just a Wyrdling.”

Echo nods slowly, not really trying to say anything more than that she understands. “I really don’t want to shadow walk back to Valinar. Do you?”

I shake my head. “No. Absolutely not. It’s a beautiful day. There’s no reason we can’t go for a little afternoon walk. We’re not far from Valinar.”

“No, we’re not far at all,” she says in agreement.

Neither of says anything about The Darkness that I’m sure is waiting in the void for us. Neither of wants to admit the terror that it represents. I’m not going back into the void until I’ve talked to my mother about it. Until then, we can walk wherever we need to go. I walked everywhere until this past year, and the thought of it makes me smile a little. Sometimes it’s good to remember where I came from.

Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself while I stay very far away from a giant eyeless eel that could eat a dragon.

Chapter 46

A bonded soul is not exactly the same as a single soul. Leaving the world of your bonded creates a separation between the two halves. It is not necessarily dangerous, but it is a strange feeling. That separation is not the same as your bonded dying. There is emptiness where your love should be in the former. There is nothing but pain in the latter.

~Maeve Arden, The Future of Magic and Dragons

Maeve

“There it is,” I say with a sigh. I’d been ready for a quick afternoon hike, but the sun had gone down, and the moon had come up long ago.

“Finally,” Echo groans. “I have never, in my entire life, walked that far. I don’t even know if Valinar is that large from one end to the other.”

A question to pose to my mother when we step through the mists. Then I hear Darian from behind me. “Where in Nyth have you been? We’ve been scouring the forest for the two of you, and shadow walkers have been looking for you in the void. Your mother’s furious that she can’t leave Valinar.”

I chuckle and shake my head. Then Cole appears from behind a tree, and he’s running toward me. In a heartbeat, he wraps his arms around me. “I couldn’t find you. I couldn’t feel you through our bond. It was a terrible feeling.” There’s so much worry in his voice. I don’t understand what happened, and I frown at him.

“What do you mean you couldn’t feel me? I hadn’t tried to reach out to you because I thought you’d be in Valinar, so it never occurred to me to even try. You’ve been in Nyth this whole time, and you couldn’t feel our bond?”

He shakes his head, and my frown deepens. “That’s troubling. I wonder what it could be.”

“Brenna would probably know,” he says.

She probably will. “We’re going to have a long talk with my mother when we get back to Valinar,” I say, but my mind isn’t there. It’s on his hand, pulling me tight to him. It’s on the warmth that I’ve missed, and I realize that there has definitely been a disruption in our connection because it’s not just his physical warmth that I’m missing. It’s the heat of his soul.

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